Yearly Archives: 2013

Mar 8 2013

Swamp Thing 18

swamp thing 18 ROT

Today, Shelby and Scott are discussing Swamp Thing 18, originally released March 6th, 2013. This issue is part of the RotWorld crossover event. Click here for complete RotWorld coverage. 

Shelby: I’m going to be honest with you all: I’m at a loss, here. I’m not sure where to begin. Swamp Thing has been one of my favorite titles since I picked it up around issue 6. Scott Snyder’s Alec Holland is a conflicted man, trying to find his place in the world, but ultimately following his heart. Yanick Paquette’s art is horrifyingly beautiful, so beautiful I was inspired to permanently ink it into my skin. Add a couple star-crossed lovers, disgusting zombie creatures, and the destruction of the DC universe, and you’ve got something pretty special on your hands. This issue marks the end of Rotworld, the end of Snyder and Paquette’s work on the title, and the fates of Abby and Alec; it’s no wonder I’m feeling a little bittersweet about this write-up.  Continue reading →

Mar 8 2013

Animal Man 18

Alternating Currents: Animal Man 18, Drew and Shelby

Today, Drew and Shelby are discussing Animal Man 18, originally released March 6th, 2013. This issue is part of the RotWorld crossover event. Click here for complete RotWorld coverage. 

Drew: Many fans were dismayed when DC spoiled the end of Batman Incorporated 8, but it really wasn’t just that they had made those spoilers available — it was that they made them unavoidable, popping up when you accessed their website with no way of avoiding the information. Sure, you could argue that the cover to that issue (which had, unfortunately, already been leaked) gave the ending away, but it’s not exactly like comic book covers have to be representing actual events in the issue. Case in point: Batman R.I.P., which — contrary to what the title suggests — [SPOILER] doesn’t feature the death of Batman. In fact, the well-known hyperbolic nature of comic book covers is precisely what made me so skeptical that Animal Man 18 would actually feature “the most TRAGIC DAY in the life of BUDDY BAKER!” (Spoilers after the jump) Continue reading →

Mar 7 2013

Age of Ultron 1

age of ultron 1AU

Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Age of Ultron 1, originally released March 6th, 2013. This issue is part of the Age of Ultron crossover event. Click here for complete AU coverage.

ultron-div

Patrick: Y’all remember Battlestar Galactica? Until the show’s premise became too complicated to be expressed in a few simple sentence fragments, each episode would begin with the following titles projected across the screen:

The Cylons were created by man. They evolved. They rebelled. There are many copies. And they have a plan.

It’s exactly enough information to tease the world of the series. Yeah, there’s a lot more to it than that — this description makes no mention of the last scraps of humanity drifting through space in outdated battleships, or God or gods or Starbuck or Frak. It doesn’t have to: the purity of the threat represented by Cylons is so elemental and to render the rest beautiful, beautiful set-dressing to this central conflict. Battlestar would go on to tell a hundred compelling stories based of that clean slug-line, replete with rich themes and psychologically complex characters. Brian Michael Bendis’ Age of Ultron looks like it will have a great deal in common with BSG, the first such indication is a straightforward and agonizingly clean premise: “Hank Pym of the Avengers created an artificial intelligence known as Ultron. It hates humanity… and it has returned.” Game on.

Continue reading →

Mar 7 2013

Green Lantern 18

green lantern 18 wrath

Today, Mikyzptlk and Patrick are discussing Green Lantern 18, originally released March 6th, 2013. This issue is part of the Wrath of the First Lantern crossover event. Click here for our First Lantern coverage. 

Mikyzptlk: One of my favorite movies of all time is The Shawshank Redeption where Andy Dufresne is convicted of murders he did not commit. He spends twenty years in prison suffering one horrible thing after another until he decides he’s had enough. He no longer wants to suffer but knows that the only way to escape said suffering is to endure even more of it. He ends up crawling through the sewage pipe to escape, but on the other side finds freedom and a new life. I couldn’t help but think about Andy while reading the conclusion to Green Lantern 18 as Hal finds himself in similar situation. While Hal may not have to crawl through a river of shit to escape, his path to freedom may be even worse.

Continue reading →

Mar 6 2013

Fantastic Four 5AU PREVIEW

age of ultron preview

Fantastic Four 5AU comes out on March 27th, 2013 and is written by Matt Fraction with art by Andre Aruajo. Click here for our complete Age of Ultron coverage.

Okay, I get it: there’s no escaping the R’Age of Ultron. Turns out that even being lost in space and time isn’t enough to hide the Richards family. It looks like maybe they have to abandon the kids in the middle of the night to return to Earth — only it looks like they’re way too late to save New York. If only they had access to some kind of time machine…

Preview a couple pages after the jump. Continue reading →

Mar 6 2013

Superior Spider-Man 6AU PREVIEW

age of ultron preview

Superior Spider-Man 6AU comes out on March 27th, 2013 and is written by Christos Gage with art by Dexter Soy. Click here for our complete Age of Ultron coverage.

So, Ultron’s basically a big piece of technology, right? Well, you know who’s Amazing at technology? Peter Parker. What’s that? He’s not available? Well, we’ll just have to get Otto Octavius then. Don’t worry, I hear he’s good too – Superior, even. Contrary to what whiny web-heads would have you believe, this preview suggests that he might just have the goods to defeat Marvel’s newest biggest threat.

Preview a couple pages after the jump.

Continue reading →

Mar 6 2013

Talon 5

talon 5

Today, Shelby and Mikyzptlk are discussing Talon 5, originally released February 27th, 2013. 

Shelby: Anytime there’s some sort of big upheaval, you usually here the phrase “a return to normalcy” bandied about. When some serious shit goes down, we the people just want things to go back to the way they were before everything went wrong. Unfortunately, sometimes there’s just no going back, as proven by the history of the phrase itself; it was first used by Warren Harding in reference to World War I. Instead of the return to normalcy he was looking for, we got the Great Depression and World War II. So, what do you do when, try as you might, there’s just no going back to normalcy? Continue reading →

Mar 5 2013

Age of Ultron 3 PREVIEW

age of ultron preview

Age of Ultron 3 comes out on March 27th, 2013 and is written by Brian Michael Bendis with Art by Bryan Hitch. Click here for our complete Age of Ultron coverage.

It looks like Ultron will be setting his sights on Chicago in issue 3. Most of our editorial staff has lived / currently live in Chicago, so we can’t wait to see the Loop savaged by a malicious robot. The champions of Chicago? It looks like Red Hulk, Black Panther and Task Master give it the ol’ college try. This preview seems content to prove the adage: Red Hulk SMASH! Hope you like robot spines!

Preview a couple pages after the jump. Continue reading →

Mar 5 2013

Hawkeye 8

Today, Jack and Drew are discussing Hawkeye 8, originally released February 27th, 2013.

Jack: Once, in high school, I attempted to make an 800-mile cross-country road trip in secret over spring break, not because I really wanted to, exactly, but because a girl I really liked had demanded it, and at seventeen, that was enough to get me to agree to what I knew was perfectly stupid. (I was saved, incidentally, by the sage intervention of my less-stupid, less-seventeen brother, who later went on to found Retcon Punch.) I like to think we all grow out of that by the time we start making regular car payments, but this month’s Hawkeye raises some unsettling questions. Continue reading →

Mar 5 2013

FF 4

ff 4

Today, Ethan and Patrick are discussing FF 4, originally released February 27, 2013.

Ethan: Growth is hard. Everyone’s familiar with the usual childhood “growing up” process, with all of its difficult changes, naïve missteps, puppy love, and idealism. Then there’s the second adolescence — of the mind rather than the body — that we deal with as we explore what it means to be an adult. The changes are more situational and relational than hormonal; the missteps become less laughably naïve but often have much larger consequences; idealism fades to pragmatism, and puppy love — well, love doesn’t really change that much. Alongside these more mundane types of development, life occasionally confronts us with something truly awful and growth stops being something we do as a matter of course and starts being something we do just to survive. In the hands of writer Matt Fraction and artist Michael Allred, FF #4 continues to show us a world in which the varieties of growth faced by children, adults, and survivors collide. Continue reading →